


when the sun swallows the world

by suzzzan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, M/M, Please Kill Me, Sad Ending, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzzzan/pseuds/suzzzan
Summary: And when Yamaguchi shortened his name—Tsukki—for the first time—Time itself stopped moving, and two puzzle pieces came crashing together.It took every atom of Tsukishima not to look at his Words. Because he knew what they were. It felt like he’d known for forever:Sorry, Tsukki.***A Tsukkiyama Soulmate AU. Sad ending. Consider yourself warned.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	when the sun swallows the world

Everything came to an end.

Tsukishima Kei understood that earlier than most kids. Pretty flowers would wilt, insects would be eaten by sparrows, spring would end. But even so, everything had its own cycle of renewal, whether through decomposition or rebirth.

When his brother (at age 11) whined about that year’s snow melting, Kei grumbled, “What’s the big deal?” _It’d always fall again next year._ His mother called him mature for the first time, and he allowed himself to gloat for half a second before Akiteru shoved his head under his armpit.

One day, the earth would be swallowed by the sun, but the universe would keep on expanding. One day spring would come back, and one day it would go again. One day Tsukishima Kei would die, peacefully, carbon returning to carbon.

“One day,” his mother said, “you’ll be able to read those Words on your arm.”

Kei (at age 6) had nodded contemplatively.

The truth was, he could already read them. His mother probably assumed that just because Kei had a large vocabulary for his age his Words would be complex, too. But the characters running down the length of his arm were simple. The phrase was short. A little strange, but unexciting. And he had no interest in them.

“What are those things on everybody’s arms again?” he would only ask Akiteru a year later, after hearing the kids in his class bantering about the writing on their forearms.

“They’re your Words.”

“Duh.”

“No, not duh. They’re the last words your soulmate will say to you.”

Kei studied his left arm again, ran his thumb over the characters. They shimmered with the stretch of his skin, there and yet not there. Kei squinted.

“Soulmate?”

“Yeah.” Akiteru’s gaze got lost somewhere before it met the poster on his wall. “Everyone has a soulmate. It’s the person who you’re destined to be with. It’s totally proven by science, or physics. Or whatever,” he added lamely.

“Like, you’ll marry them?”

“It’s more than that.” Akiteru touched his own left arm. “You’re bound to them, like cosmically. You’re made for each other.”

“Who makes them?”

“I—I don’t know. Why are you asking me? Go read a book or something.”

He swatted at Kei's ear. Kei ducked.

“How do you find them? A soulmate.”

“Man, you’re curious.” Akiteru leaned forward. “I’ve researched—I mean, I’ve read things here and there about soulmates. You don’t find them. You’ll just know when you meet them. Because of some super special connection that extends beyond the physical dimension. Or whatever,” he said again.

Kei processed this. “Okay,” he said, when he was done. “What are your Words?”

Akiteru turned red.

“Lemme see.”

“No! You… you can’t see other people’s words anyway.” He held up his arm, showing smooth, unblemished skin where Words should have been. “See?”

Kei huffed. “It’s probably something embarrassing.”

“No it’s not!” Akiteru wailed.

*

Tsukishima did read a book after that. And in the years following, too. He read many books, simply because he was always bored and books were often more interesting than what was happening around him, the utter predictability of the world and its seasons. Akiteru (at age 15) joining the volleyball team changed that, though.

Volleyball was interesting. Its uncertainty made it so. You never knew, in that split second, what was going to happen. It was so fast. Dilate time and suddenly everything was possible, with the potential of being everlasting. The ball would never touch the ground. The point would never be lost.

Until, of course, it was.

Meeting Yamaguchi, Tsukishima felt the same thrill of uncertainty. As he stood up to those bullies, he couldn’t tell what was going to happen. Everything fractured into percentages. The wavering in their leader’s eyes. If they pushed him, Kei would go down hard, in a sprawling of limbs. Kei (at age 10) was tall but thin. Weak. No muscles. Thick, fragile glasses.

A split second later, the bullies were running away, and the world was dull again.

Except: Yamaguchi.

Yamaguchi Tadashi broke all the theories of Kei’s observations. He was an “always” and a “forever” and yet a force of unpredictability. You never knew when he’d run into class late, spouting apologies for oversleeping. His favorites were always changing. Favorite food, favorite color, favorite Pokemon. Tsukishima sometimes had trouble keeping up. Luckily, Yamaguchi was always there, by his side, half a step behind.

Everything came to an end, but not Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi stayed, and because Yamaguchi stayed, he’d always stay.

Tsukishima knew that theory didn’t obey the laws of the universe, but in this split second that lasted forever, like a spiked volleyball hung in the way of the moon, it made sense. Tsukishima didn’t have to thank Yamaguchi, because he would always do something for Yamaguchi in return. He didn’t have to greet Yamaguchi or tell him goodbye, because they’d always see each other again. He could tell Yamaguchi to be quiet, because he would always hear from him again. And when Yamaguchi shortened his name— _Tsukki_ —for the first time—

Time itself stopped moving, and two puzzle pieces came crashing together.

It took every atom of Tsukishima not to look at his Words. Because he knew what they were. It felt like he’d known for forever:

_Sorry, Tsukki._

And Kei knew he wouldn’t have to care about anything else for as long as he was Kei. Because this cosmic, freckled chatterbox with the worst cowlick was his soulmate. And he wasn’t going anywhere.

*

Yamaguchi said Kei’s words every day, from middle school to high school. He said them in summer, when he dropped his ice pop on Tsukishima’s shoe and Tsukishima had to buy him a new one. He said them in spring, when he got a noseful of pollen and sneezed all over Tsukishima.

He said them instead of asking Tsukishima if he could look at his homework. He said them during volleyball practice whenever he missed Tsukishima’s pass or when they were practicing serves together or when they were changing and his foot got caught in the ankle of his trousers and he fell into Tsukishima—“Sorry, Tsukki!”

For Kei, the Words became a promise—whenever Yamaguchi would say them and the world would keep on spinning. _Everyone was wrong_ , Kei liked to think to himself, if only to be self-indulgent. The characters on his arm weren’t the last words Yamaguchi would say to him. They were ones he’d say forever and forever.

So when Yamaguchi asked him one night, “What are your Words?” Kei replied, “They’re nothing special.”

Because they weren’t. That was the beauty of them.

“Why do you ask?” he said after an acceptable pause, trying to sound just disinterested enough to carry on the conversation. Soulmates just weren’t something he and Yamaguchi talked about. Even though Kei read articles and studies about the Words and soulmate bonds, he never said, _Hey, Yamaguchi, wanna hear a fun fact about soulmates?_

(What was he supposed to say? _You’re mine, Tadashi. You’re mine, and I’ve known it for years. You’re mine and I'd never let you go, even if I don't show it.)_

No. That wouldn’t do. Those words were too cloying, and Kei wasn’t sure he could say them without laughing anyway. He couldn’t ruin the moment for Yamaguchi, whenever it might come one day.

“Mm, I was just curious,” Yamaguchi said, sitting up on Tsukishima’s bed, where he’d been on his elbows and stomach staring at homework and chewing on a pencil. “We never talk about these kinds of things.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

Time dilated. Tsukishima stared at his notebook. Could he tell Yamaguchi, or would he stay silent? A voice in the back of his mind told him it didn’t matter all that much. Yamaguchi wasn’t going anywhere.

“True…” Yamaguchi curled up around Kei’s pillow. “I feel like soulmates aren’t real sometimes. Or they’re so far away they might as well not be real.”

Kei let out a breath. “Yeah.”

Right. What was the point of telling Yamaguchi now? Kei could shoulder the knowledge for both of them for now. the day would end, and another day, virtually the same as the last, would come around.

*

“I’ve been thinking,” Yamaguchi said another time, on their way home from practice.

“About?”

He turned his face toward the moon, and Tsukishima had to stop himself from running his thumb over Yamaguchi’s freckles. In the uncertain light, they had the same there-not-there shimmer as his Words.

“Yachi-chan was talking about her Words today. With Hinata.”

“You heard?”

“You heard, too?”

Kei shrugged. “They were loud.”

Yamaguchi laughed, and Kei felt his chest constrict and then grow impossibly wider. He felt a sudden urge to take Yamaguchi’s hand, but stopped himself. Reminded himself that Yamaguchi didn’t know. And how was Kei even going to tell him? Was holding hands a soulmate thing? or just a Yamaguchi thing?

“I've always wondered about my Words,” Yamaguchi said.

Tsukishima looked back at him, right there. Half a step behind, as always. “You can tell me about them. If you want to.”

Yamaguchi beamed and looked like he was going to throw up at the same time.

“I said if you want to.”

“Sorry, Tsukki,”—there it was again—“my Words are driving me nuts.” He held up his arm as if Tsukishima could see what was printed there. “It just says ‘Please.’”

_Please?_

Those were the last words Tsukishima would say to his soulmate?

_Please._

He nearly laughed out loud, thinking about how his dying word would be ‘please.’ He hardly said that to anyone, ever. He tried never to ask for favors. He tried never to owe anyone anything. It was just inconvenient.

So maybe it was fitting it would be the last thing he’d say to Yamaguchi.

“How am I supposed to find my soulmate if all I know is that the last thing they’ll ever say to me is ‘please’? Like, are they asking me to pass them a bowl? Are they correcting my manners? What if it’s just in passing, and I’ll never see them again after that? I’ve heard someone in class 5 has two hundred words on their arm—and I have _one word_?”

They fell into silence again.

“Sorry, Tsukki.”

Those Words again. Tsukishima frowned to keep himself from smiling because, even then, Yamaguchi was already drawing breath to speak again.

“I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately, you know?”

“Yeah,” Tsukishima said, then decided suddenly: “Hey, wanna hear a fun fact about soulmates?”

Yamaguchi perked up immediately. “Really?”

“Yeah. They say you don’t have to find your soulmate.” (Technically, there were people who never met their soulmates in their life, but they were in the minority, and Tsukishima wasn’t about to tell Yamaguchi that.) “You’ll just know when you meet them.”

“Oh…” Yamaguchi dragged his feet. Tsukishima slowed, too, and caught him gazing solemnly at Tsukishima. They looked at each other. There was something that needed to be said, but neither of them spoke.

At last: “The moon is really pretty tonight.”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t even looked at it, Tsukki.”

“Yeah, I know.”

*

In their third year, a boy in their class asked Yamaguchi on a date. He was stocky and liked to smile and would have looked good with Yamaguchi, and honestly Kei didn’t care about him.

“Reject him,” he said when Yamaguchi came to him for advice.

He didn’t feel selfish keeping Yamaguchi to himself. Because this was how it was supposed to be. Tsukishima Kei and Yamaguchi Tadashi were soulmates. There was no point in being with anyone else, walking home with anyone else, talking to anyone else. Because the universe had put them together—two charges that happened to attract because of their intrinsic polarities. The very atoms that made up their bodies. The very things that made up those atoms. All this belonged to each other.

But Yamaguchi sputtered, protesting about hurting the guy’s feelings and—oh right, Yamaguchi didn’t know.

“You don’t like him,” he told Yamaguchi.

“But I could,” Yamaguchi said. “What if he’s my soulmate, Tsukki?”

“Do you really think he is? This random guy.”

“He could be!”

“What are the chances?”

“I dunno. But he said I was his type.”

Tsukishima sat up straighter. “His type?”

“Quiet. Cute. He called me cute, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima scoffed. “You’re not quiet or cute.”

“Hey!”

“See what I mean?”

Yamaguchi stilled. “How can you be so sure? You’re always so sure.” He grinned devilishly. “So _cool_ , Tsukki.”

Tsukishima scowled. “Shut up. Sure of what?”

“That he’s not my soulmate.”

And just like that, the truth came out. Naturally. Inevitably.

“My Words,” Tsukishima said, touching his left arm. “My Words are ‘sorry, Tsukki.’”

He watched as recognition dawned on Yamaguchi’s face.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yamaguchi. Would I ever lie to you?”

“Exactly. What’s in this for you?”

“Don’t go out with that guy.”

Yamaguchi punched him in the arm. “This whole time!” A slap in the chest. “This whole time you _knew_ ? You knew and you didn’t _tell_ me?!”

Kei grabbed at his wrists, but Yamaguchi was on a rampage. He shoved Kei onto his own bed and pounced on top of him, poking any bit of free flesh he could find.

“I don’t—I didn’t know—if you’d want to know,” Kei said, on the verge of laughing.

Bits of teardrops flew off of Yamaguchi’s face. “You didn’t know if I wanted to know? If _I_ wanted to know about my _soulmate_?”

“Yeah, if I told you, I couldn’t exactly take it back, could I? What if… it didn’t fit the way you felt?”

“Tsukishima Kei,” Yamaguchi said, suddenly very serious. “I’m in love with you.”

Kei stilled. Propped himself up on elbows. “What?”

“I’ve been in love with you. Ever since we were kids. Ever since you carried me on your back so I wouldn’t step on the inchworms. Every time I call you cool. I mean I love you.”

Kei kissed him.

Yamaguchi grabbed the sides of his face and kissed him back, scrabbling for purchase on Kei’s beanpole 190 centimeters, and finding it, pressed closer and closer until you couldn’t tell where Tsukishima ended and Yamaguchi began.

*

Naturally, they took their entrance exams together and graduated together and went to the same university. Naturally, they roomed together, and Yamaguchi did his homework in Kei’s bed, and at night they’d sleep under Kei’s quilts in a tangle of limbs, sharp knees and elbows jutting out so badly that it was perfect.

(Eventually, they just pushed both beds together against the wall. But they still gravitated toward one side, curled around each other like offset parentheses.)

Half a year passed before Tsukishima realized he wasn’t bored anymore.

He was sitting in the food court of a shopping center and reading the back of the video game box that Yamaguchi had just bought, one hand dangling off the table to trace circles on Yamaguchi’s knee. His eyes passed over words that he didn’t comprehend—when had Tsukishima gotten _bad_ at reading?—and his mind was pinballing between how he would kiss Yamaguchi next and how glad he was that the table they were sitting at was tiny as fuck. Resting their elbows on it, their arms two took up the whole surface. There wasn’t even room for the remains of Yamaguchi’s milkshake, which Kei held for him between his knees.

A feeling of utter contentment washed over Kei.

“Sounds cool, right?” Yamaguchi said, and it took Kei a moment to remember he was still holding the video game.

“Yeah,” he said, skimming the description once more. _Gritty, mystery, puzzles_. “Not what you normally go for.”

Yamaguchi shrugged. “I heard good things about it.”

“Hm, I’ll think I'll be the judge of that.” Tsukishima usually watched as Yamaguchi played and provided snide commentary.

Yamaguchi huffed, smiling. “I told you, Tsukki, if you really wanna judge, you have to play it.” He snatched Kei’s hand up from under the table. “Gameplay’s an important mechanic.”

“Mm… shut up. I know,” Kei grumbled. “You say that all the time.”

“Because it’s true,” Yamaguchi said.

“If it’s so important why do you always say every game you’ve played is the best?”

Yamaguchi knocked their legs together. “They’re the best in different ways, okay?”

Kei laughed. He laughed more now, he realized. Because if he laughed, then Yamaguchi would, too.

Yamaguchi’s gaze drifted to something behind Kei. He gasped softly.

“What,” Kei said.

“Tsukki, they’re so cute.”

“Should I look?”

“Yes! Hurry, before they leave.”

“Wouldn’t it be creepy if I stared, though?”

Yamaguchi laughed. “Then don’t stare. Just look. They’re by the fountain.”

Kei reluctantly took his eyes off Yamaguchi and turned around in his seat. On the edge of the fountain sat a family of three. The kid was throwing money into the water, the plush toy rabbit she held in her other hand draped over the edge, getting soaked. As Tsukishima and Yamaguchi watched, her mother pulled her back, took the rabbit, and wrung it out. Her other mom was getting something out of a bag and dashed over to see what was wrong. Kei could almost hear them, _It’s okay, it’s just a little water, Bunny’s gonna be okay._ One mother puffed her cheeks and blew on Bunny’s feet to dry them off. The girl laughed. _That’ll never work!_

Slowly, behind them, their bag tumbled into the fountain.

Yamaguchi snickered.

“The amount of sympathy you have is astonishing,” Kei told him.

“Should we go help them, Tsukki?”

“Hm, so now you feel bad.”

“I can feel bad about something _and_ think it’s funny.” Yamaguchi watched them intently over Kei’s shoulder. “They got the bag out. They’re laughing about it.”

His eyes were as big as the moon. Kei could tell he wasn’t looking over at the fountain anymore. He waited for Yamaguchi to come back down to earth.

Slowly, Yamaguchi turned to him. “I think… I want to start a family with you, Tsukki.”

Kei laughed through his nose.

“Shut up, Yamaguchi, we’re college students.”

Yamaguchi poked his arm. “You shut up. You know I don't mean _right now._ ”

Tsukishima allowed himself to be taken aback. Yamaguchi had told him to shut up, even if he’d meant it as a joke. He was always surprising. Kei decided he was more in love with Yamaguchi than ever before.

“Maybe,” he said. “One day.”

Yamaguchi exhaled, and in the air, Tsukishima could smell hope and disaster and Yamaguchi, though he couldn’t quite distinguish Yamaguchi’s scent from his own anymore.

“Okay, good,” Yamaguchi said. “Because I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Of course you do,” Tsukishima said, shifting impossibly closer to run his thumb over Yamaguchi’s knuckles. “We’re soulmates.”

His reminder—his Words—peeked out at him over the curve of his arm. _Sorry, Tsukki._

Yamaguchi shook his head. “Even if we weren’t, I’d still choose you, Tsukki.”

That baffled Kei, when Yamaguchi said things like that. The fact was that he didn’t choose Kei, and Kei didn’t choose him, but they were meant to love each other by some fundamental law of the universe, and was there anything more beautiful than that? Why did Kei have to care that Yamaguchi would love him if they weren’t already destined to love each other? He loved Tadashi because that was who they both were.

Simple.

Really, people did things in the most complicated ways sometimes. All in all, you ended up where you ended up, you got what was coming, so what was the point of caring about the small things, of speaking in hypotheticals? What had been the point of Akiteru staying late to practice if he was never going to get a spot on Karasuno’s volleyball team? What had been the point of Hinata fighting for a measly point all those times when the score was clear they’d already lost the set? What would have been the point of Kei accepting his college admission in Tokyo when he’d have to work his ass off there (which would have been depressingly devoid of Yamaguchi, by the way) and probably end up in more or less the same job after school?

But because it was Yamaguchi, because it was his soulmate, Kei gave him a grin and said, “I would too.”

Yamaguchi’s smile could light up colosseums.

*

Yamaguchi stopped going to get his hair cut, and as the months passed, his cowlick was brought down by its own weight. Tsukishima entertained them for a while by buying Yamaguchi hair ties of varying sizes and colors and shapes and measured time by the length of Yamaguchi’s ponytail.

He started to feel the familiar ache of boredom again. Not of Yamaguchi—never _of_ Yamaguchi—just the incessant ticking of time and there being nothing to slow it down.

He quit Sendai’s volleyball team. Frogs were a dumb mascot, and graduation was right around the corner, anyway.

The unnerving newness of becoming an adult wore off slowly, but it didn’t replace the boredom that came with knowing what would happen each day. Tsukishima went to work at the museum, had lunch with Tadashi, went back to work, and then came home to the apartment he and Yamaguchi shared.

Sometimes they’d cook together and sometimes one of them would bring back takeout. Sometimes they watched a movie after dinner and sometimes Kei watched as Yamaguchi played a video game. Sometimes, before they laid down to sleep all crowded on one side of their bed, Yamaguchi would get Tsukishima to braid his hair, which fell past his shoulders now.

“Do you think I should cut it?”

“Do _you_ think you should cut it?”

“I don’t know. Do you like it long?”

“I like doing this,” Kei said as he twisted one strand over the other.

He was very, truly fine with the hair—and everything else about Yamaguchi. He was in love with his soulmate. He had never imagined anything else.

The truth was, Kei didn’t want anything new or exciting. Or even interesting. No, he was fine with this life, because it was the one he’d always planned on living. He had everything he needed—bare essentials and Yamaguchi. It felt like after years of waiting, he was finally where he was meant to be. Where he had known he was going to end up from the beginning.

Kei was truly, very fine.

Boredom was an old friend. It wasn’t a problem.

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t the reason Kei grew less interested in making Tadashi laugh.

It wasn’t the reason he always said, _I’m tired,_ whenever Yamaguchi said, _Tsukki, let’s do something this weekend._

It wasn’t the reason Kei forgot Yamaguchi’s birthday one fall. It wasn't the reason he went through his day as usual, came home with takeout from Yamaguchi’s favorite restaurant, smiled at his soulmate over dinner, and went through his bedtime routine, all without a single word. And it certainly wasn’t the reason that, when Yamaguchi nestled close to him in bed, whispering “Tsukki, remember what day it is?” Kei’s gut grew cold because that was right, there was something special about today, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him.

“It’s your birthday,” he said, after too long. “Happy birthday, Tadashi.”

The room was silent for so long that Tsukishima prayed Yamaguchi had fallen asleep, even though he could tell by his shallow breaths that Yamaguchi was wide awake.

“Did you forget?”

“I…” Kei couldn’t lie. He was ashamed that he wanted to. But he knew Yamaguchi’s birthday. He had it saved on the calendar on his phone. If someone had held a gun to his head and asked him to name the date Yamaguchi was born, Kei wouldn’t break a sweat.

“I didn’t realize the date,” he said. “Last month flew by. I was planning on doing something—”

The words caught in his throat. Because he hadn’t been planning on doing anything for Tadashi. He’d gotten so used to the way things played out day after day, each day a carbon copy of the last, of the next, that he’d just stopped considering that Yamaguchi would want something different. Stopped caring.

“Don’t lie to me,” Tadashi said into Kei’s shoulder, words muffled.

Kei stared up into the darkness of the room. “What do you want me to say? That I forgot your birthday? I can make mistakes, okay?”

“Sorry, Tsukki…” Kei felt Yamaguchi’s fist clench at the back of his shirt, and—god damn it, why was he apologizing with those Words? “I just feel like… it wasn’t a mistake.”

Kei scoffed. “Then what was it.”

The rustling of covers was nearly deafening as Yamaguchi shuffled around and propped himself up on an elbow. Kei could barely make out the shape of him with light from the street peeking around the corners of the shaded window.

“I feel like you don’t see me anymore, Tsukki.”

 _That’s dumb_ , he wanted to say immediately. _What the fuck does that even mean?_ But he forced himself to choose his words with care.

“Tadashi, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me—”

“Then why don’t you act like it?” Tadashi said, entirely too loud for their small room. “I know you don’t like to say sappy shit, but you’ve always cared as much as I do. I could tell. But now… Tsukki, I’ve wanted to go to that Tokyo science museum for months—”

“Tadashi, I work at a museum. They’re boring.”

“Then say you don’t want to go. You only ever say you’re busy or tired or ‘Maybe let’s try next week,’ but you never say _anything real_. I feel like there’s less and less of you every time I see you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I’m asking, where did you go?”

Kei grit his teeth. “I didn’t _go_ anywhere, Tadashi. I’m right here. I've been here all along. Ever since we were fucking kids. Where do you _want to go?_ ”

Tadashi took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I just want to be somewhere else with you. I want to go to the museum in Tokyo with you. I want to climb a mountain with you. I want to go see the ruins of a castle with you. Just anywhere that’s not this apartment all the time. I want to build _something_ with you.”

Kei scrubbed his face. What was the point of trying to maintain anything if you already had the best thing in the world, a thing couldn’t possibly go away, according to the laws of the universe?

“Why,” he said, knowing he shouldn’t—knowing Tadashi—but he said it anyway. “What do you want to build? Am I not enough? Is what we have not enough?”

“What we had,” Tadashi corrected, “was perfect.”

Tsukishima didn’t understand. He had never stopped loving Tadashi. The way it worked now, where they lived slowly together, Tadashi half a step behind and right by his side, that was the way it had worked for so many years.

“What do you want from me?”

Tadashi shook his head. “You don’t get it.”

“No, I get it,” Kei drawled. “We can go to your museum. We can go see Aoba Castle.”

“That’s not—” Kei could hear him struggling to speak for a moment, the knot in his throat closing off and catching his words. “Right now, I want—I need—you to apologize.”

Kei stared into the darkness where he thought Tadashi’s eyes might be. “For what?”

“For forgetting my birthday.”

“I already said—”

“But you didn’t apologize.”

Kei sighed. “Tadashi, I ordered from your favorite restaurant.”

“That’s not my favorite restaurant. That may have been my favorite _two years_ ago.”

Kei scoffed. If he acted like this was a frivolous argument, then it might as well be one. Yamaguchi’s favorites changed often, he knew, but he always got them right. It wasn’t like he stopped refreshing the lists in his head.

Had it really been two years?

“How am I supposed to remember something like that?” he said, contorting his tone into something more lighthearted.

“I don’t know,” Tadashi said. “But I know that I need to forgive you. So please.”

So Kei swallowed his stubbornness and said, “I’m sorry.” He reached out and brushed a part of Yamaguchi with the tips of his fingers. “I love you.”

“Okay.” Tadashi found his hand and gripped it with what felt like all the strength in his body. “Okay. I love you, too.”

*

Tadashi proposed on the warmest day of spring. They’d finally made a trip to Tokyo, went to the museum, manga stores, and shopping centers, where they’d each picked out a new piece of clothing for each other.

When they got back off the train, Tadashi turned Kei to face him and sank down on one knee.

“Here?” Kei said.

“Shut up. I've been trying to work up the courage all day.”

Kei laughed, and Tadashi’s eyes twinkled, even though he maintained that petulant scowl.

“What were you scared of?”

“Getting run over by a Tokyo business person. They walk so fast.”

“Hm, I wouldn’t have let that happen.”

Tadashi pulled out the ring. “Tsukishima Kei, I love you with my entire soul. I love everything about you. I love everything you say, whether you’re reading to me or talking about the news or telling war stories from the museum. I love that you know me better than I know myself and that sometimes you let yourself feel that way around me, too. Tsukki. I love that you let me call you Tsukki, even though you said when we were fourteen that we were too old for those kinds of nicknames.”

“Okay,” Kei said softly. He could feel his face burning up. If Tadashi went on for any longer, he was going to have to excuse himself from his own proposal to go cry or something.

“Will you start a family with me?” Tadashi murmured.

“Yes,” Kei said. What else was there to say but yes? This was where they had always been headed. A ring. An engagement. A life together.

“Now get up, you’re getting your pants dirty.”

He pulled Yamaguchi to him and drew him into a kiss. and Yamaguchi smiled too much, and their teeth clicked together. Then Kei was laughing and Yamaguchi was laughing, his nerves visibly disappearing, and there was a bright moon overhead and everything was… good.

“But let’s wait a while before adopting, Tadashi,” Kei said later, as he examined how his new ring reflected the light. “Once people have kids, they get so old.”

Yamaguchi kissed his cheek and snuggled in closer. “Okay, Kei. Whenever you’re ready. i’ll be here.”

And Kei felt a horrible cloud of doubt loom over him for the first time in his life. He couldn’t help but pick out a darkening, approaching truth: That Yamaguchi wouldn’t be here if they weren’t soulmates.

“Promise?” he said, hating how vulnerable he sounded.

Yamaguchi shifted to look him in the eyes. He said it so easily. “Promise, Tsukki.”

*

By all accounts, Kei should have wanted kids. If anything for the sole reason that Yamaguchi had always wanted a large family. Wanted it as much as he could breathe.

But Kei, more than anyone, knew his own faults. Some people weren’t cut out to be parents. Inevitably, as sure as the sun would one day swallow the earth, messed up parents passed their messed up traits onto their innocent, unsuspecting children. Kei was lucky he was raised by people like his mother, father, and Akiteru—and still he’d ended up self-centered and indifferent, with an inferiority complex he hid behind disorienting smugness.

He was lucky that he had Yamaguchi to love him unconditionally. He could never love anyone as much as he loved his soulmate.

Of course, Kei had hoped that would change. But as the years slipped by and gray started appearing at Yamaguchi’s roots, Kei’s promises of “one day, one day, one day” became _never, never—please—never._

Then Yamaguchi was talking about moving—moving to an apartment that would be safer for the kids. The kitchen stovetop was too low where they lived now; it would be dangerous. There was that weird step in the bathroom. It was too small; there wouldn’t be enough space for the kids to play.

So Kei agreed, because he didn’t have a reason not to. On his lips he’d promised _one day,_ and if he knew anything in the world, it was that that day would come, as much as he dreaded it.

They packed up their belongings, laughing about how little they actually owned, and moved themselves over to a new hollow shell. The apartment was entirely too large for the two of them. Tsukishima found that he could lose Yamaguchi in the long hallway of branching rooms. Yamaguchi was no longer right there, always. Kei had to search for him.

“You’re so far away,” he joked one day, as they sat on opposite ends of their new, longer, softer couch they’d gotten for the kids.

Yamaguchi smiled, but Kei could see the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the frown lines around his mouth.

One day, Yamaguchi told him, “I made an appointment with an adoption agency.”

And Kei swallowed. “Okay. Good.”

“Are you sure?” Yamaguchi said. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s just… you never told me you were ready.”

Tsukishima smiled at his soulmate. “I know it’s what you want.”

“But is it what you want?”

A long silence. Tsukishima couldn’t lie, but this time he was glad he didn’t have to. Not when Yamaguchi asked him point blank.

“Tadashi, we’re already a family. You and me.”

Tadashi blinked. Once, twice, then very rapidly as the words sank in. “We’re not a family,” he said. “We’re soulmates.”

And that hurt. Kei didn’t know much about pain, but that hurt.

“You have a family,” he said through his teeth. “You have your parents and your grandparents and your cousins that we see every new year’s.”

“But that’s different,” Tadashi said.

“Different how?”

“Different from a family we build together. Different from something we choose and work towards together. I've always wanted to do that with you, Tsukki. I thought you knew.”

“Okay,” Kei snapped. “We can do that. We can adopt kids and tell them not to break things around the house or scream too loud in public, and the only conversations we’ll have can be, ‘Are you sending the kids to school?’ and ‘Which one of us is picking them up?’ and ‘Who’s getting them from volleyball practice?’ And we can get them toys that are always smaller than the ones they want and try to make them read books with no pictures and study hard in school, even though none of that really matters. Hell, we can even get a cat—you like cats, right? So the kids can pull its tail and chase it around this fucking house with no weird step in the bathroom and try to eat its fucking litterbox. We can do all that, Tadashi. You want? because I’ll do it with you. And then we can wake up one day with sore backs and headaches and go to jobs we’ve hated for years but couldn’t quit because of the kids and wonder where our lives have gone.”

He was breathing fast and standing on his feet when he was finished. He didn’t remember getting up. Looking down at Tadashi, he found him uncharacteristically quiet. Tear tracks ran down his cheeks, but he wasn’t crying.

Without a word, Tadashi stood and walked away, brushing past Kei.

Kei had fucked up, he knew. He hadn’t meant to say all those things. They’d just burst out, all the poisonous thoughts he’d held back for years and years.

But the worst part was—he’d meant them.

He sat back down slowly, trying to assess where to go from here. Yamaguchi wasn’t crying, which meant he was angry, which meant he needed some time to cool off by himself. Kei could use that time, too, to sort through the damage he’d done.

He calmed down, focused on a singularity. Yamaguchi Tadashi. As long as he and Yamaguchi were together, they would be fine. Everything would be fine.

He waited ten, fifteen, thirty minutes, then went into their bedroom. Yamaguchi sat on the bed, against the wall, shoulders hunched. A half-packed bag beside him.

“Tadashi?”

“This whole time,” Tadashi said. “This whole time, and you didn’t tell me.”

“I thought I’d change my mind.”

“You thought you’d waste my time.”

Kei crossed his arms. “That’s not fair.”

“You were being selfish, Tsukki. You wanted me by your side because it made you feel better about yourself.”

“No. I love you,” Kei insisted.

“You love soulmates. You go fucking crazy over the idea of them, because it means you don’t have to care. Or try.”

“Tadashi—” Kei started, but his voice broke when he needed it most.

Tadashi got up, zipped up the bag. Kei chased him to the door.

“Tadashi, you promised you’d always be here.”

Yamaguchi turned to him and smiled, his face all in cracks. Kei glimpsed the boy who’d once told him the moon was pretty.

“And you promised _one day_. And I can’t do this anymore.” He took a step past Kei, away, away, away. “Sorry, Tsukki.”

“No.” Kei reached out for him, but Tadashi didn’t get any closer. It was only then that he realized how often Tadashi met him halfway.

_“Please…”_

He’d said Yamaguchi’s Words. He’d said the Word without meaning to. But it was fine. As long as he finished them, they wouldn’t be the last words he said to Yamaguchi. _Please don’t go._ Or _Please stay._ Or _Please don’t leave me all alone._ Any one of them.

_Please._

Kei opened his mouth, but Tadashi reached out and pushed him away. Before he knew it, the door had opened and closed, and Yamaguchi Tadashi was gone.

*

Kei waited. He waited in the big, empty apartment that didn’t feel like home. He waited for an hour, then five, then ten. The day ended, another day came. A day that was different than all of the others. A day that should never have come.

He called Tadashi. It went straight to voicemail.

He called Tadashi twenty-seven times.

He wondered where Tadashi was right now and realized he couldn’t picture the world with Tadashi in it alone.

He called in sick for work. Kei would wait here until Tadashi came back. Because it was inevitable that Tadashi would. Just as it was inevitable that they would one day die next to each other, and Kei would say his last words for the last time. _Please._ Just as it was inevitable that _this time_ could not have been the last.

There was more. There had to be more.

At nightfall, Kei left the apartment and walked down street after street. He rode the subway and got off station after station. He realized he didn’t have a clue where Tadashi would even go if they weren’t together.

And now Tsukishima finally understood that he understood nothing.

He remembered something Hinata had said, years ago, during a match where all of Tsukishima’s blocks had failed. _It won’t just happen,_ the midget had screamed in his face, jumping up and down. _You have to fight for it!_

But he and Yamaguchi. They were made of atoms with complementing polarities. Together, it was inconceivable that they could be separated. But once the inconceivable happened, how did you even begin to find what was lost, among all the atoms of the universe? How could you catch something so small in your bare hands?

Kei could only trust it would work. He could only go to every hotel, every hostel in the city, hoping that Tadashi hadn’t taken the first train out already. He had to trust he could hold Yamaguchi again, feel the weight of his hair, and say those last words a million times over. Like Tadashi had done for him.

Because the snow melted, but it would always fall again next year.

Wouldn’t it?

_Wouldn’t it?_

**Author's Note:**

> @tossysauce on twitter. come yell at me?


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